The Aztec Love god

The Aztec Love God
by Tony Diaz

Paperback
199857366-036-5
Price: $12.95

The Aztec Love God is a dark comedy about Tiofilio Duarte's climb to obscurity. Originally, young Tio wanted to perfect
the comic role of the Aztec Love God, his ideal persona. Along the way, he meets Jester, an older, Caucasian comedian who makes Tio an offer he'd
like to refuse: Jester offers Tio an opportunity to join his act. The only condition is that he, Tio has to perform Latino stereotypes. Tio has
to decide if he is going to take the blank check for easy thoughts or develop The Aztec Love God on his own.

The Aztec Love God combines humor, politics, and street knowledge. Diaz comes at the reader from all angles. His mixture
of styles and influences pushes The Aztec Love God to a multi-multiculturalism.

The Aztec Love God is a vato but not too loco.

"Diaz, who won the Nilon Award for Excellence in Minority Fiction, is an ethnic writer trying to work against stereotypes. His
coming-of-age tale is about Tiofilio Duarte, a Mexican American high school student who dreams of becoming a stand-up comedian. Written in the
short, staccato bursts of a comic's monolog, the novel examines the multiple personalities adopted by Tio as he tries to fit into the different
worlds comprising his life. He is Junior or Tio at home, Antonio Marquez in his prestigious Catholic school, Lorenzo Casanova on his forged ID,
and Juan Valdez at the comedy club where he sells out, joking about the worst Hispanic stereotypes as part of his successful act. Portraying a
world in which Hispanics are bombarded by white televised images, where the Duartes' home is the former set for Leave It To Beaver, this wildly
funny look at the world through Tio's eyes heralds a new talent."—Library Journal

"I had heard about Tony Diaz and The Aztec Love God through the writing group Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having
Their Say, which he is the founder of in Houston, Texas. So I went to check it out, and I also read the book. I think they are both alike and
linked. The Aztec Love God is cutting edge, and is changing what is expected of Latino Literature. The book is hilarious, but also very
wild, and also experimental. On one level, you will laugh out loud at some of the things in the book, the comedy, the situations. The main
character Tiofilio Duarte is very funny. It is so funny, and so crazy at times with its form and style that you might miss how deep the book
is. It really does take a hard long look at what it means to be an American, what it means to be an artist, how tough and how smart you have to
be to survive in this day and age. It will challenge and change what you think of as art, literature, and identity. This is what Diaz does not
only with his writing but with Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say."—Tony Ruiz, Houston, Texas

"The Aztec Love God is an experimental text. It is one that does not invest in the style of the Chicanos of the 1970s, nor
of the high brows of New York. It is a book about a young Latino coming of age even when challenged to go down the easy road. Durante, the
comic, encounters Lester, a would-be manager, who only sees Durante in terms of a stereotype. Durante has to decide which road he should travel,
and then, look toward a past that has never really been explained to him. To read the text, one most getting ready to laugh, then think. It is
not an airport novel, nor a romance. It is a dose of reality, con un poco humor."—A reader

Excerpt

Under this mental regime, I thought, like everyone else, that there were only two types of people on earth: You were either a
willing participant of the "Real World" on MTV or a sucker on "Candid Camera." It was under that king that my energy was channeled into
constructed ways, and my life slipped into a Mexican version of "Leave it to Beaver." "Leave It to Burro" my life could have been called,
starring me, Tiofilio Duarte, as The Burro.

You see, my family actually lived in The Cleaver's old house.

In a fit of Sombrero Hysteria, years after the show went off the air, my dad cashed in the CD that was supposed to be my
college fund and outbid other people for the house used for the set. Then he paid to have it moved to Chicago. Papa never mentioned college
to me again, but I still had to help clean out all the beaver droppings from our new house. And it was my chore to every week paint over the
graffiti on our white picket fence.

Every night, I prayed and prayed and prayed for the cancellation of "Leave It to Burro," until an episode just after my 17th
birthday when I met my first girlfriend. Her name was Rosa Hernandez. Our families informed us that we were boyfriend and girlfriend during a
banquet for the feast of La Virgen De Guadalupe. She was muy caliente - smooth - West-Side-Story-Rita-Moreno-caramel-pretty face with
dark-Heathers-Winona-eating pastries shaped like the Virgin Mary. The second I bit into her halo, I had MTV visions of me and Rosa under a bingo
table, her shaking my maracas. I said to her, in a cool Ricardo Montalban voice, "Let me take you out to dinner."

As a male, as my father's unwilling heir, I had a later curfew than Rosie which thereby extended her official leave. After
dinner at The Olive Garden and a public screening of La Bamba, I used my extra hour and a half to get brave enough to put my arm around her. We
kiss, then realize it's ten minutes to midnight, and my Chebby is about to turn into a pumpkin. The show closes with Mrs. Hernandez on the
doorstep, welcoming me into the family, presenting me with a Young Man's Bilingual Bible.

One week later, Rosie and I make love behind a trucking warehouse. Real love. The most real love of its kind, with groping,
fumbling, blushing. Real love, no body doubling, no black bars over body parts, no cosmetic surgery.

And REAL sex was not rated X!

There were more positions, more close-ups. Scents erupted. There was more than one point of contact, there were all those
places where skin touched skin, all those points of contact, touch.

And there were all the plots leading into, through, and beyond the act.

It took a dick by the name of Jester to convince me to leave that love scene on the cutting room floor.

Fiction Collective Two is an author-run, not-for-profit publisher of artistically adventurous, non-traditional fiction. FC2 is supported in part by the University of Utah, the University of Alabama Press, and private contributors.